


Hypodermic

by gloomsday



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Serum Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:17:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1910613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomsday/pseuds/gloomsday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He presses his fingers to his temples and rubs. The sharp but slow revival of his powers has a Pavlovian effect on his body: the underside of his arm thrums with anticipation of a syringe punching through his skin and the serum coursing through his veins. He draws in a quick breath and prepares to stand—to slink back into the passenger cabin; somehow stamp out the impossible brightness of his fellow mutants’ minds without losing his own; administer his treatment three times over; and shut his eyes as the voices fade into whispers and then into sweet, sweet radio silence—but the intensity of Hank’s thoughts stun him into a paralysis of sorts.</p><p>(i.e., My take on the “missing plane scene” that everyone has been so keen on writing, except this takes place before the chess scene, just after Erik and Charles quarrel.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypodermic

A garbled whisper infiltrates the frayed periphery of Charles’s mind. He jerks upright in the copilot’s chair and glances over to Hank, who’s worrying his bottom lip, eyes trained forward out the window of the cockpit. The additional creases etched into his forehead convey distraction and discontent, an expression Charles has noticed Hank wearing a lot since Logan unearthed them from Charles’s mansion turned mausoleum. He hasn’t dared inquire after him, fearing that he already knows what plagues his friend.

Hank frowns and slouches forward.

_—needed me. Charles still needs me._

Hank’s clear voice tears through the tender and underused recesses of Charles’s mind like barbed wire. Charles stifles a gasp and leans forward as if he’s had the wind knocked from him, covering his face with his hands and gritting his teeth to try and shove out the unwanted stream of Hank’s thoughts.

_I couldn’t just leave him. He has no one else._

He presses his fingers to his temples and rubs. The sharp but slow revival of his powers has a Pavlovian effect on his body: the underside of his arm thrums with anticipation of a syringe punching through his skin and the serum coursing through his veins. He draws in a quick breath and prepares to stand—to slink back into the passenger cabin; somehow stamp out the impossible brightness of his fellow mutants’ minds without losing his own; administer his treatment three times over; and shut his eyes as the voices fade into whispers and then into sweet, sweet radio silence—but the intensity of Hank’s thoughts stun him into a paralysis of sorts. He remains hunched over as Hank’s regret and panic and shame wash over him.

_Raven. Does she think of me the same way Erik does? Does she think I’m a coward?_

Charles can feel his sanity slipping away from him, losing touch with the world. A strangled whimper escapes his knotted throat but Hank mercifully doesn’t seem to notice, headset clamped over his ears and far too caught up in his own broodings.

_What if Erik’s right? He didn’t abandon us. We did. Charles and I, we left them all to die._

Charles rubs his temples again, desperate to eject Hank from his mind. He knows that his friend’s thoughts are only the beginning; the idea of even scraping Erik’s poisoned mind is enough to make his stomach churn with disgust.

_We hid away from them when they needed us most._

Hank’s words splinter off from one dark corner of his to the next, consuming every inch of his mind. He twines his fingers into his hair and pulls.

_I can’t believe they’re all dead. Dead. Oh god, what have we done?_

He folds in even further on himself. From the corner of his mind he feels Hank startle and incline his head toward him.

"Charl—"

"I didn’t do  _anything_  wrong!” he shouts, his voice cracking as he slams his hands against the dashboard.

Hank flinches so violently in his seat that his headset knocks loose from his ears. He fumbles with the mouthpiece for just a second before shoving the entire apparatus down around his neck.

Hank squints at Charles and tilts his head, confusion settling in his face. “What’s wrong? What’re you—”

Charles stares at him with a wounded, bewildered expression, his chest heaving. His lip quivers and he looks away with a small head shake, sinking back into the copilot’s chair. Hank’s eyes widen briefly and his entire face flushes; he turns away from Charles.

"You promised you’d never do that to me!"

"What the hell’s going on in there?" Logan yells from the cabin. Logan’s concern spreads to Charles, followed by overwhelming annoyance. And nestled somewhere in there, growing doubt in his mission.

_This is hopeless._

Amid Hank and Logan’s thoughts muddying his head space, Charles manages to regain control of himself.

"I’m so sorry, Hank. I can’t—I didn’t know—"

Hank’s face shifts from anger to worry in a matter of seconds, his brow softening. “You didn’t skip your dose this morning,” he says dumbly.

Charles nods.

"I didn’t know your body had acquired a tolerance. How long—" He pauses, thinks better of asking. "I brought extra," he mumbles.

Charles almost laughs, astonished by how little Hank admits to knowing of his flagrant serum abuse. Sneaking into the lab and siphoning off whatever he saw fit for the day; Hank running out of the reserves months before they rightly should have. No, Charles is sure that Hank knows. He just refuses to accept his contributing role in creating the Charles doubled over beside him. The coward who would rather hide from what he fears the most than face it.

Erik’s mental barriers, though impressive, aren’t enough for Charles to completely block him out, and his mind shines with blinding persistence. His very presence pulses in Charles’s brain, a violin string being plucked. Charles shudders. As he strives to put up barriers of his own, he catches glimpses of concern and anger and frustration tangled up in Erik’s mind. No tangible stream of consciousness—just swirling feelings, complicated and interwoven.

Charles winces, his head now throbbing.

Hank leans over and sets his hand on Charles’s shoulder. “Do you need help?”

"No," Charles says, shifting away. "Thank you, Hank."

Hank sighs and stares at the dials in front of him.

In one focused effort, Charles rounds the copilot chair and brushes aside the red, velvet curtain separating the cockpit and the cabin. He almost doesn’t see Erik kneeling down in the middle of the aisle, picking up two saucers that had skidded off the table over an hour ago.

Their eyes lock for a brief moment before Charles looks away with an embittered snarl. Anger sweeps down through his chest and gather at his fingertips. How he’d love to hit him again, make him feel even just a fragment of what he so badly doesn’t want to feel.

The image of Erik’s eyes, sharp with loathing, fixed on Charles alone as the plane’s shell uncrumpled back into shape, flicker through his thoughts. He hates to admit that Erik’s powers are still magnificent—his mind is brighter, more fine-tuned, even—after ten years of being more or less stripped of his abilities. The exact opposite had happened to Charles; his conscious decision to cut himself off from his powers only seemed to dull the rest of his senses. If another telepath were to reach out for him over the past decade, he suspects his mind would look like a supernova remnant: dim, fading dust of a star that has long since collapsed on itself.

Sidestepping around Erik, Charles digs the tips of his middle fingers to his temple and drops into his seat.

Logan’s eyes follow him from across the cabin, then immediately alternates quick, wary glances between both men. He tightens his grip around the whiskey glass. “Is there something I should know about?” he says.

Charles scoffs and bends down, pulling forward a duffle bag from under his seat. A sharp sting plagues the back of his neck; he cringes and cowers away from the window, unable to brace himself for a powerful constellation of minds spilling into his mental range—a nearby airline judging by the strong pull of vertigo from both a middle-aged man and a little boy. More voices soon join theirs, vying for supremacy, crescendoing into maddening white noise.

Erik stands and stacks the two dishes in his hands, his gaze never lifting from Charles.

"Charles," he finally says, setting the saucers on an empty table beside him.

"Leave me be, Erik!" Charles warns, flashing him a manic glare.

Charles withdraws a small, metal case from the duffle bag and snaps it open. Six vials with enough serum to last Hank three months (and Charles only one month if he’s lucky) lay side-by-side in perfectly fitted foam depressions at the bottom of the case. A row of syringes line the top of the case, housed in sterilized glass.

Erik continues to clean up around Charles, stacking the utensils on a table beside him with his powers in complete nonchalance. Charles can feel red-hot disapproval directed at him and the metal case. His jaw clenches, eyebrows drawing down on his forehead as he struggles to push Erik out of his head. He can take Hank. Logan. Some strangers. But he fears Erik more than anything: that incomparably bright mind that drags Charles out of his self-imposed darkness and into a blazing, exposing light.

He glances at Erik again. The same, small part of him that wants to hit him again also wants to shoot up right in front of Erik—force him to see exactly what he has done to him, what he took away from him. A larger part of him knows that he’d only make himself look a spectacular fool, his hurt lost in petty revenge.

Closing the case, he stands up and mutters, “If you’ll excuse me,” brushing past Erik as he makes his way to the back of the plane. He slams the bathroom door shut and turns the lock on the knob before flicking the lights on. His eyes throb from the harsh lighting from above but he blinks back the pain, rushing over to the sink to set down the case.

A tingling sensation prickles the bottom of his spine, trickling down to his legs. Releasing a breath he didn’t even realize was being held in his lungs, Charles unbuttons the cuff of his long-sleeved dress shirt and rolls it up past his elbow. Small, yellowed bruises accompanied by red bumps mar the upper part of his forearm all the way to the crook of his arm, where one large, mottled bruise spans the entire width. He holds the vial up to the light, the thin yellow liquid surging back and forth within. Charles removes a syringe from its casing and inserts the needle through a rubber stopper nestled in the lid of the vial.

_What’s happened to you, Charles?_

He nearly drops the syringe and the vial, his breath hitching. Erik’s voice, smooth and strong. Charles unintentionally slips into a memory he’d sought to forget: Erik pressing him up against the wall in his study—mere days before that life-altering moment on the beach in Cuba—burying his face against his shoulder to stifle a moan. The last time they had shared a head space without barriers or fear.

Charles shakes himself free of the memory, refusing him a response. He wipes the corners of his glassy eyes with the back of his shaking hand, and extracts three times Hank’s daily dosage into the chamber of the syringe. Setting it down on the edge of the sink, he picks at a space between the outside border of the case and the foam padding, extracting a leather belt. Charles wraps it around his bicep, putting the long end of the belt between his teeth and pulling tight as he thumbs the buckle’s prong through a well-worn, self-punctured hole. He pumps his arm twice before plucking the syringe from the sink, his shot veins finally surfacing under his skin.

The lock in the doorknob twists on its own, stopping with a gentle click. Charles doesn’t move, but Erik’s unmistakable presence on the other side glows in the back of Charles’s mind.

_Erik, no._

He backs against the far end of the bathroom, syringe in hand, anger once again flaring within his chest. The door opens, and Erik, with a hand raised, peeks around the corner. He slips inside and shuts the door behind him. Looking up from the floor and at Charles, he stops, his mouth falling open for a moment before he shuts it. His widened eyes dart from Charles’s face to the belt around his arm, then back to his face.

Charles glances down at the syringe in his hand. He lowers it so that the tip presses against the soft, bruised skin. A slight cringe taints his features.

Erik’s mouth twitches as he lifts his hand and holds it out at Charles, palm out. He curls his fingers inward and, with a small twitch, the syringe jerks from Charles’s hand with violent force, slinging across the narrow corridor of the bathroom. It smacks flat against Erik’s hand. He clutches it before dropping it to the floor, the metal needle crumpled. Charles’s eyebrows sink down on his forehead, his scowl deepening, but he says nothing, even as Erik passes from one side of the cramped bathroom to the other in a single stride and grabs Charles’s outstretched, battered arm. Erik’s grip tightens on one of the bruises. White hot pain surges behind Charles’s eyelids. He winces, swinging at Erik with his unrestrained hand. Erik thwarts him with little effort and pins one of Charles’s arms against the wall, simultaneously using his powers to force the buckle’s metal prong from the belt hole. The belt comes loose from Charles’s arm yet doesn’t fall to the ground, hovering in mid-air. With a flippant wave of his hand the belt slams against the door behind him.

Charles’s mind hums with Erik’s worry—genuine, nonjudgmental. Erik’s hand slips down to Charles’s wrist and he gazes down at him again.

_Charles, why are you doing this?_

Erik’s even stare sweeps down to Charles’s arm, a look of true disappointment flickering across his stern features. Charles glares at him again, struggling to free himself from Erik’s grasp. He knows he can’t shake him; Charles never boasted physical prowess when he kept himself, but his feeble, thinned arms from years of neglect do even less to protect him from Erik, a man of inarguable strength—his powers aside. Erik ghosts his fingers over the bruises, mesmerized as he studies each one. He looks up at Charles.

_I did this to you._

Charles scoffs, looks away, and nods, refusing to placate Erik—to give him peace of mind. Erik had resigned Charles to nothing short of a living nightmare after he left, the furthest thing from peace Charles could think of, for so long.

Erik’s eyes narrow and his lips thin, though Charles can feel the man’s rage peeling away.

_I’m sorry._

Without a thought (Charles would’ve heard it), Erik lunges at him, pulling him into a rough, constricting embrace. Erik’s impossibly bright mind reaches out for him, an invitation Charles would have graciously accepted without a second’s hesitation if there wasn’t a decade and a bullet to the spine between them. Now, he recoils at the thought, instinctually shielding himself from more pain.

"G-get off me!" he shrieks, working his arms between Erik and himself just enough to try and shove him away. But Erik hardly budges, tensing around him. Charles’s mind sparks against Erik’s, a last-ditch effort to blot him out. He culls up the hurt and the heartache Erik has caused him—Erik and his stubborn bloody determination—and sends it to him despite how much it makes his head throb with the effort.

After a moment to process, a shiver travels through Erik’s body. The creases in his forehead deepen and he looks away. A snarled mess of Erik’s guilt and loneliness and desperation and lust settles into Charles. Alongside that, the same memory of them together in the study, but from Erik’s perspective: his strong hands clutching the underside of Charles’s naked thighs, holding him in place; beads of sweat prickling along Charles’s temple; Charles’s pale neck, bare and exposed. Charles, Charles, Charles. Everything Charles.

His memory, far crisper and more powerful than the foggy one Charles had reconstructed before, sweeps Charles up as if he’s back in the study with Erik at that very moment. His brain sinks into a haze so that he thinks he can hear Erik’s muffled whispers against his neck and feel his fingernails digging into his thighs. Clinging to the dissipating fragments of Erik’s memory, Charles involuntarily moans and shudders, falling limp into Erik’s arms. His head rolls back. Erik starts at the sudden change in Charles’s body language and tightens his hold on Charles to keep him from collapsing to the floor.

"Charles?"

Erik’s voice channels a jolt of self-awareness through him. Blinking once, twice, Charles rips himself out of Erik’s memory, untangling it from his own mind. With a sharp exhale, he slams his palms against Erik’s chest, shoving him away.

"I said get  _off_  me!”

Erik stumbles backwards, thrusting one hand out against the sink to keep his balance. Their quickened breaths and the persistent buzzing sound of the lightbulb above the sink fill the short distance between them. From his mind’s periphery he can hear Logan contemplating whether or not he should intervene. He mercifully decides to wash his hands of it as long as Erik’s doesn’t send the plane into another nosedive.

_Hopeless. Goddamn hopeless._

Erik furrows his brow but doesn’t budge, still staring at Charles. His unbridled concern prods at Charles’s mind like a persistent flame, refueling Charles’s anger that he had lost for a moment in the haze of memory. Charles hooks a strand of his hair out of his face and behind his ear, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

The longer Charles looks at him, feels his splintering presence in his mind, the more he loathes him—no, the more he realizes he’s never loved anyone like Erik, and that he never will love anyone like he loves him. His body trembles with hate and years of slowly stewed rage, yet all Charles wants now that Erik’s with him again is exploit the man’s shameless desperation and desire that are filling in around the edges of Charles’s head space. To maintain control in the only way he’s known how.

Taking an uneasy step forward, Charles leans forward and clutches Erik’s collar with his bruised arm, drawing them together. He moves his hand down the front of the open shirt until he reaches the third button. With a twisting motion, his thumb and middle finger Charles work the button open, widening the small sliver of Erik’s exposed skin. Erik watches Charles with a tinge of what looks like disbelief before lifting his hand and with a slight horizontal jerk of his finger, the dial within the bathroom doorknob clicks forward, locking.

A deep-seated twinge radiates from Charles’s lower spine. He wriggles his toes, realizing with a fearful gulp that the tips have gone numb. Swirling, shimmering thoughts from Hank and Logan interrupt Erik’s blindingly bright emotions, though distinct imprints of worry continue to surface. Always fussing over him. Even Erik—beneath the anticipation and budding arousal—projects concern over everything else. He resents them all for thinking him so fragile, so breakable, and he resents them for being completely right to worry.

Charles’s hand travels down Erik’s chest, ignoring the rest of the buttons on his shirt in favor of the one keeping his trousers fastened. Reaching down with both hands now, Charles unbuckles his belt, jostles the trousers button free, and unzips the fly. He grasps the hem of Erik’s trousers and yanks them down hastily along with his briefs, just past his hips. Palming the exposed base of Erik’s half-hard cock, he eases up against Erik and backs him against the sink.

Charles revels in Erik’s entire body vibrates with pleasure as he clutches the sink behind him with both hands. Erik bends forward and brushes his lips against Charles’s forehead, but he jerks away. His hands abandons Erik’s erection in favor of his hips, running his hands up his waist and then back down. A bitter laugh rolls in his throat; Erik’s body feels even more defined than he had remembered. Erik looks at him quizzically but says nothing.

Pressing his head to Erik’s collarbone, Charles grinds against Erik’s thigh. Erik mutters something unintelligible in German, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. The corner of Charles’s lips upturn just a titch. Emboldened, he digs his fingers under the hem of Erik’s underwear and shoves a hand inside, stroking his bare cock. Erik bucks his hips and leans down again, nudging Charles’s forehead with his just enough to slip down and capture Charles’s mouth in a sloppy, reckless kiss. Charles wrinkles his nose and again tries to pull away, but Erik reaches one arm around and caresses the back of his head, keeping him in place. His large hands intertwine with Charles’s long, straggly hair and pull gently as Charles opens his mouth to allow Erik in. They break away after a few moments and stare at each other in silence, panting. Wiping at his lower lip, wet with Erik’s saliva, Charles reaches between them and fusses with the rest of Erik’s shirt buttons.

Freeing the final button, he pushes Erik’s shirt from his shoulders and Erik shrugs it off past his elbows and then his wrists. The thin fabric flutters to the ground. Charles’s eyes follow it and then glance back up at Erik’s bare chest. His attention narrows to two dark freckles side-by-side on his shoulder, a trivial but charming detail about Erik he’d almost forgotten. Taking him in fully now, he recognizes that Erik’s body, though much paler from his imprisonment, is still taut and statuesque as if only a few weeks have passed since their last meeting.

Erik kicks off his shoes with little effort and makes quick work of removing his underwear and trousers, toeing them aside in the cramped cabin. Erik, now stark naked before him and fully erect, forces Charles to become more aware of his equally aroused state. He can feel Erik’s needy eyes on him, wishing to tear his clothes off with every second that passes between them.

Charles bridges the gap between them and rubs his fully clothed body against him, reveling in the warm, hardened flesh of Erik’s erection through the fabric of his shirt. Erik fishes out the shirt tails from the waistband of his trousers. He fumbles with the buttons, out of practice and nearly shaking with impatience.

_I want you. So much. Oh god, I’ve wanted you for so long._

As Erik works his way down Charles’s button-down, Charles slips off his shoes and undoes the button of his own trousers. Charles shoves away Erik’s hands from the final button and does it himself, slipping his shirt off on the floor along with Erik’s, then his trousers and underwear. He places his hands on Erik’s narrow waist and guides him sideways to a low counter next to the sink, urging him to hoist himself up onto it. Erik’s eyebrows raise, questioning but not surprised, before he complies, lifting himself onto the surface. Charles forces himself between Erik’s legs and draws their cocks together, stroking them both in his grasp. Erik’s head tilts back against the wall.

_Please, Charles._

Another twinge shoots up Charles’s spine, forcing a slight gasp and recoil out of him that Erik seems to miss. He makes an anxious effort to move his toes, but can’t feel whether or not they’re responding. His mind swims with Erik’s pleasure and anticipation and not much else anymore.

For a moment he contemplates retrieving the condom in the billfold of his wallet—a remnant of a phase not so long ago when he’d pluck any old person from the bars take them to bed—but dismisses it; he can’t find it within himself to care and he doubts Erik will refuse him without it. Pressing Erik’s legs apart, he spits in the palm of his hand, spreads it to his fingers, and rubs his middle and forefinger against Erik’s entrance. Erik’s breath hitches as Charles presses in both fingers at once without ceremony. A sharp glimpse of discomfort flashes through his mind’s periphery, encouraging him to push in even further. Erik squeezes his eyes shut and squirms beneath him, his mouth falling open and brow wrinkling the faster Charles thrusts his fingers in and out. Charles slips his fingers out and repeats the process—even rougher than before.

"Charles," Erik begs.

Charles spits once more into his hand and strokes his own erection, coating it with his own saliva. Hauling Erik toward him a bit, Charles presses the tip of his cock against Erik’s entrance and thrusts into him. Erik’s pain surges through Charles, a slow burn that is reflected in Erik’s flushed, wincing face and prolonged gasp. Charles slows but keeps pushing forward while wrenching Erik from the counter and down onto him to get the angle just right, forcing Erik onto his elbows to keep him upright. Finding a comfortable position, Charles pulls out and pushes back in from the more direct angle.

Erik’s mind spikes with expletives in at least three different languages, spiraling with pain and a hint of pleasure wrapped somewhere in there, jabbing through Charles’s consciousness.

Charles moans and throws his head back as Eriks’s range of physical reactions becomes his own, like he’s both fucking and being fucked at the same time. He can feel his legs starting to give out but he stubbornly keeps himself standing, hoisting Erik closer to him. A trace of sweat dampens Charles’s hairline, and as he looks up he catches sight of Erik, his eyes bright and glassy and occasionally rolling back as Charles bucks his hips into him with strangled grunts. Erik’s shoulder blade bangs against the wall, and again Charles’s mind is invaded with the threat of Logan wondering if he should find out what’s going on. Charles pushes the flimsy thought through Logan’s head to stay where he is, unsure if it did much of anything and not entirely sure he cares. He runs his hands up the curve of Erik’s lifted thighs, only grounded by the tangibility of the man beneath him.

For a moment Charles’s mind goes entirely blank, the brightness of Erik’s consciousness and his culminating into a blissful nothingness as a result of their coupling. But as he basks in the silence, he realizes Erik’s thoughts are still there within him, tingling under his skin as mere whispers.

_I’ve wanted this more than anything._

Charles pauses, now unable to ignore the stinging of his spine. He arches his back to try and soothe the pain but the pain amplifies.

_Don’t—_

Charles gasps, his teeth bared and grinding against each other.

An air of disappointment crosses Erik’s features for only a second before his eyes snap open, the maddening buzz of Erik’s pleasure in Charles’s mind dissipating. He backs up onto the counter and touches Charles’s wrist, withdrawing from him.

"Charles?"

Staggering sideways against the wall near the toilet, Charles’s face screws up in pain. He mumbles a breathless “fuck” and slides down the far wall adjacent to the toilet until he’s seated on the floor. Erik leaps off the counter, crouching in front of Charles’s legs that are pulled in close to his chest. Charles gasps again as he grabs at his thighs with shaking hands. His now manic gaze flits from place to place in the bathroom like he’s in a confused daze, finally pausing over the open metal case left open and abandoned on the sink.

"Erik, please," he whimpers, frantically pointing his finger at the case. "Hurry."

Erik stands up and considers doing just as Charles has requested—to help him dull the good along with the bad and induce the continuation of a decade-long mental catatonia. He looks back to Charles, who can read his every hesitation but chooses to stay silent.

Erik turns away from the case. Instead, he somewhat clumsily steps over Charles, setting the toilet seat down so that he can sit beside him in the small space of the bathroom. Charles’s shoulders droop and he looks away from him, a resigned sob forcing its way from his throat.

Erik touches Charles’s shoulder, but is fought off with an indignant slap.

_Charles, I am truly sorry. I am. But this isn’t the answer. You’ll destroy yourself. I can’t stand idly by and watch you do it._

He turns to him. “Erik, if you care at all for me—if you  _ever_ cared for me—I’m begging you. I’m begging you to give me my bloody treatment,” he says, his voice on the verge of breaking.

"You were meant to use your gifts, not fear them," Erik says simply, an uncompromising tinge to his voice.

"Don’t make me  _force_  you, Erik.”

"I’d prefer that over the alternative."

They stare at each other. Charles raises his shaking hand and presses a finger to his temple, still glaring at Erik. Pursing his lips, he squints his eyes and starts to formulate the directive for Erik to retrieve the serum from the sink, but the pain radiates from his spine. He rips his hand away from his temple in favor of administering pressure to his lower back, to try and lessen the twinges coming in increasingly painful waves.

"I—I can’t." Charles says. "I can’t even use them when they’re right in front of me, Erik. It’s hopeless!" he shouts. "I’m fucking hopeless."

 _Hardly_.

Charles gleans Erik’s thought resonating within the vast but worn confines of his mind—forcing him to use his powers to communicate with him.

Charles glances up at the ceiling, defeated. His mind feels like its overheating, a light bulb ramped up too many volts and threatening to burn out.

"You know nothing of what my powers do to me," Charles says, his voice taut and strained as he returns to rubbing his legs. "What they’re doing to me."

_I know. I’m sorry, Charles._

Charles shakes his head, his face wrinkling into a scowl. “No, you’re not.”

_You think I enjoy seeing you like this?_

"What would you have me do, Erik? Stop taking my treatment? Purposely let myself relapse into a bloody cripple literally and mentally?" The sting of tears work its way back up into his eyes. His legs sink down, parallel to the floor as their remaining strength completely saps from them. "You weren’t  _here_ ,” he says, embittered. “I had to do  _something_ , for Christ’s sake.”

He stops massaging his thighs; he can’t feel them anymore, but some measure of relief washes over him in knowing that the pain in his back  has also subsided along with the use of his legs.

_I know._

Erik lifts Charles’s chin and gazes into his maddeningly blue eyes. He leans down and touches Charles’s forehead with his fingers, brushing his hair from his face. Charles’s glare softens, and when Erik tilts his head and kisses him, deep and gentle, Charles doesn’t resist.

He backs away from him. “You’re perfect like this,” he says. “Just like this.”

Charles doesn’t have to scrape the surface of Erik’s thoughts to know he believes every word that he’s saying.

Tears spill over Charles’s lower eyelids. Erik’s hand moves down from his forehead to his cheek, then to his chin, brushing the tears away.

"Charles," Erik murmurs, kissing him again. He presses his forehead against Charles’s cheek, inclining his head down to nuzzle his neck; his warm, steady breath against his jaw coaxes a fleeting shiver from Charles. Gently, Erik reaches between them and takes Charles’s now flaccid penis into his hand. Charles flinches and snaps his hand against Erik’s wrist.

 _Please_.

Charles swallows audibly and bites the inside of his cheek before loosening his grip on Erik’s wrist. His hand falls to his side against the tile floor. Erik moves his hand up Charles’s cock, kissing the side of his neck with enthusiastic nips as he notices that Charles is already responding to his touch. Continuing his ministrations, Erik skims his lips down to Charles’s collarbone and then against his throat, sucking the tender skin as he increases pressure on Charles’s growing erection.

_You’re perfect like this. Your mind is perfect._

He lifts his head so they’re once again eye-level, drawing Charles in for another kiss. Charles’s mind swells with Erik’s affection for him: the man who helped him unlock his powers so long ago. Memories of simpler times, before Cuba, now flash in Charles’s mind as Erik remembers them fondly: recruiting in New York, and the first time they’d had sex; Charles’s mansion, realizing the true potential in his fellow mutants and himself; Charles’s guiding hand and compassion and patience.

Erik pulls away reluctantly and moves off the toilet seat so that he’s crouched right next to Charles, squeezed uncomfortably between him and the toilet. He pivots and kneels between Charles’s unresponsive legs, spreading them as far as he can within the small confines of the bathroom while still stroking Charles’s now hard cock.

_May I?_

A shadow of panic streaks across Charles’s eyes—the control he’s sought so hard to keep in his clutches now feels to be entirely surrendered—but he nods in spite of his smoldering pride. Lifting Charles’s legs and ass up slightly to award him more room, he stretches his long, lean body over Charles and resumes their kiss.

Erik slips two fingers into his mouth and gently presses them past the ring of muscle at Charles’s entrance, pausing to allow him to adjust before continuing. Charles moans into Erik’s mouth, running his hands through Erik’s red hair.

"Erik," Charles whispers, his desperation increasing every second Erik’s fingers push into him. Dropping a hand to his mouth, he turns aside and spits a generous amount of saliva into his own hand. He reaches down to stroke Erik’s cock, re-familiarizing himself with his subtle contours from base to tip over and over until Erik presses his palm gently against Charles’s shoulder, his eyes half-lidded with pleasure. Eyes locked, Charles guides Erik’s erection to his entrance and then removes his hand.

 _Charles_.

He presses the tip of his cock into Charles and waits—sinks in deeper, waits. Charles tosses his head back, his whole body from the waist up trembling. What pain there is for being under-prepared softens, dulled beneath Erik’s all-encompassing pleasure of being inside Charles. Erik eases the rest of his cock into Charles with a sigh, then pulls out and thrusts back in. Both of their mental barriers collapse. Charles’s mind pulses in time with Erik’s, their now completely shared head space so bright Charles feels like he’s looking into the sun. His head spins with intense euphoria and pleasure.

Erik withdraws and refolds his legs to kneel before Charles. Securing a hold on Charles with his strong arms, he lifts him on top of him, slowly lowering him back on his cock. Charles gasps and wraps his arms around Erik’s shoulders, pulling their faces close. He inclines his forehead against Erik’s, their noses touching as Erik lifts and lowers Charles in time with his own thrusts into him.

Neither of them last long; Erik tries not to shout but mostly fails as his whole body seizes with climax. Just the sound of Erik’s euphoric thoughts and the slight brush of his cock against Erik’s stomach is enough to bring him over the edge shortly after, spilling his release on both Erik and himself in the process.

Even after Erik slips out of Charles, he continues to hold him, their limbs and minds still intertwined, their foreheads still touching. The sound of their slowing heartbeats pound in each other’s ears. After a few minutes the blissful white silence in their connected minds starts to dim. Their minds separate, and Charles is left once again with Hank and Logan’s inner monologues. Oh god, Logan knows. The shock in the poor man’s thoughts must suggest that even old age hasn’t made Charles loose-lipped about private matters.

Erik’s mind, still blazing in his mind’s eye, reaches for him.

_I don’t want to leave you again._

_Then don’t._

_We could do great things for our mutant brothers and sisters, Charles. Just you and me. Together._

Charles doesn’t respond immediately. He thinks about Raven and Hank and his students, and the rifts that he and Erik have already caused between them all. Perhaps they were never meant to be together. Yet Logan’s insistence that he was sent by the two of them seems to imply otherwise. The invitation is tempting.

Erik kisses him again before lifting him off his lap and setting him down against the far wall while he stands and starts cleaning himself up.

Charles looks away. “Quantify ‘great things,’ Erik. The last time I thought we were doing great things for our brother and sisters, your mission had taken on an entirely different meaning.”

Now Erik doesn’t respond. His mental barriers have returned, making it difficult for Charles to read anything other than a tinge of his anger.

Suddenly restless to get up and return to the cabin, Charles looks down at his legs. “Erik?” His voice wavers, and he can feel immediately that Erik knows what he’s about to ask.

"I can’t watch you do this to yourself, Charles." He bends down and picks up his briefs and trousers, shaking them out before stepping into them.

Charles’s eyebrows draw down on his forehead. “I haven’t much of a choice right now, if you haven’t noticed. If we’re going to find Raven, I need to be able to walk.”

"If you hadn’t shied from your powers you could’ve used Cerebro to reach out to her."

Anger surges once again in Charles’s chest. “I’ve  _told_  you,” he says, enunciating each word with more venom than the last. “I can’t control it. Not anymore.”

Erik shakes his head. “You’ll never learn to control your powers if you keep justifying your excuses for hiding them away. You’re afraid, Charles. I know what being afraid is like. But what you’re doing—what you continue to do—I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Charles slams his hands against the tiles. “You can’t bloody well leave me here like this!”

Erik squares his shoulders, passing one of his arms through a sleeve, then the other. As he buttons up his shirt, he turns to Charles. “I’d be doing you a favor.”

"That may be true. But please, Erik. Now’s not the time."

Erik looks up at the ceiling, his hands clenching at his sides. After a moment of silence, the metal case lifts slowly off the counter and drifts across the bathroom onto the toilet lid. He smooths his trousers and straightens the collar of his shirt.

_You’re holding yourself back._

Charles’s resentment for Erik’s insistence on killing flashes back into his brain. The reason why Erik had left him to wither away for a decade.

"And you’re a little too ambitious," Charles says evenly, retrieving a syringe from its glass container. "You might want to turn away now, Erik. Wouldn’t want you to see me destroy myself."

Erik glowers and unlocks the door with a quick twitch of his outstretched hand. The door swings open and he exits without once looking back, slamming the door behind him.

He can still feel Erik’s bright mind skirting the periphery of his, spikes of his frustration and regret now prickling through Charles.

More than ready to release his mind from the strain of his affliction, he steadies his hand to remove the cap of the needle and sticks it though the vial’s rubber stopper. He turns the vial upside down and pulls the plunger back, filling half the syringe’s compartment with serum. Tapping the glass with his free hand, he withdraws the needle and stretches out his bruised, smooth arm. Not a vein in sight.

He glances at his makeshift tourniquet lying in front of the bathroom door, now entirely out of reach without his legs. With a muffled curse, Charles sighs and sets the syringe down, He squeezes his upper arm, pumps his arm a few times, and flexes his hand. With extensive coaxing, a shallow vein surfaces and Charles swipes the syringe, jabbing the needle under his skin without a moment’s hesitation. The sharp pinch makes Charles wince but he keeps pushing plunger down and can feel the serum flowing through his veins. A soft gasp escapes his mouth as he can feel the sensation of Logan and Hank and Erik’s bright minds dimming and then burning out. Charles allows his head to roll back against the wall as feeling in his legs returns little by little.

Charles’s eyes snap open, the unmistakable sound of Erik’s voice whispering wordlessly in his mind. But then just as quickly, it’s gone, and the sweet, sweet radio silence settles down into him.


End file.
